Off to the Races

Bali Discovery Events Provides Production Support of Bali Episode of ‘The Amazing Race’

(3/15/2013) The broadcast last week of “The Amazing Race” brought participants and viewers to the island of Bali.

The race pits teams of international globetrotting contestants competing against each other in culturally based skill fests. Unsuccessful candidates can be sent home for poor performance while continuing racers receive financial bonuses on the way to a small fortune awaiting the overall winner.

The teams arrived blurry-eyed in Bali after being told by host Phil Keoghan in New Zealand that Bali was the next destination.

The groups of contestants tumbled off three different self-arranged flights in Bali where magical coconuts where given on arrival. Laboring to peal off the tough husks surrounding the world’s largest nut, the racers found a written clue to their next challenge.

The coconut clues revealed a detour – offering participants the choice of a “fruity top” or a “sandy bottom.” Option one took them to Ubud where they were challenged to create a tiered tower of fruit – know locally as a “gebogan,” used as a religious offering to the gods and traditionally carried on the heads of Balinese women in ceremonial procession.

The “sandy bottom” alternative sent participants to collect sand from a local river to be transported 200 meters up a hill.

Still in Bali, all participants then traveled to a surf beach in Uluwatu where they were tasked to sort through a large collection of surfboards in search of a sign or a symbol encountered earlier during the race in Bora Bora. The surfboard then had to be carried up a large number of stairs and presented to the show’s host who, if they presented a board with an incorrect symbol, sent participants back down the hill to try again, while the clock continued to tick.

9 teams came to Bali, but team John and Jessica took one hour and 15 minutes to find the right surfboard resulting in their elimination from the race. Meanwhile the remaining 8 teams scampered off to Bali’s Ngurah Rai International airport where their next destination and leg of the race was revealed.

Etha Margaretha of Bali Discovery Events, who facilitated the filming in Bali, said: “The Bali Discovery Event team loves the challenge of working in the fast paced and demanding atmosphere offered by supporting reality TV projects. Creativity, location assistance and the assembly of large groups of qualified production assistants and extras represents are the kinds of challenges our destination specialist love to meet head-on and overcome. There’s also the special added joy of eventually seeing the project come to fruition when the program is boardcast.”

Prior to the actual broadcast and during the filming and post production period, Bali Discovery Events worked under strict confidentiality agreements forbidding them from discussion even the name of the show in preparation.

Now that the show has been aired, the broadcast team at Bali Discovery Events excellent work can now be mentioned.

Are they're other Bali TV projects in the pipeline? Sorry, we can't say no more than "stay tuned."